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Bacs

Current Account Switch Service (CASS) - Switch Your Situation

Intro

The Current Account Switch Service makes switching your current account between banks and building societies simple, reliable and stress-free. The service is free-to-use and available to individuals, small businesses, charities and trusts.

Since launch in 2013, awareness has remained above the 75% all adult threshold over the last 12 months, however, with further investigation, it was found that there was growth across all demographics with the exception of 18-24s – significantly lagging behind other age groups. Research informed us that this audience do not believe that CASS is relevant to them, which required more tailored, benefit-led messaging (“Switch your situation”).

The Brief

Our brief was simple, yet challenging. We were tasked with increasing 18-24s’ awareness (third party tracked via Accord) by 10 percentage points in a single campaign.

This campaign worked alongside and overlapped with a mass campaign which continued to use the service-based messaging.

What we did

Research showed that 18-24s with low awareness of CASS are spenders, not savers. Their biggest concern about money is that they don’t have enough of it! Whether they’re students, graduates, or working straight out of school, they’re experience-lovers who want to get the most out of life and share this online (Mintel). They are extremely media savvy – adopting the latest platforms and following aspirational influencers. They know when they’re being advertised to, but are happy, as long as it’s entertaining or helps them enjoy content they love.

Google search trend data highlighted a rise in current account related searches among 18-24s between August and September, mostly driven by student accounts.

With this in mind, our media approach set out to engage with 18-24s within experience-led media channels and platforms during August-September 2017. Given our awareness targets we had to make sure that our media reached as many 18-24s as many times as we could afford to. This became a digital-only media plan across social, video and audio media platforms due to the targeting capabilities and engagement opportunities the channel could offer.

We engaged users with a Snapchat lens that allowed 3.5 million 18-24s to switch up their situation – by turning their frown upside down. We surprised users with a fun and engaging take on how switching your situation can have its benefits with a viral video created and seeded by Jungle Creations. We used Facebook engagement ads in the form of gifs and carousel units to give the effect of swiping to switch. We used short-form video content across YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, BVOD and VOL platforms to engage users with shorter videos in the platforms they love to spend time in and maximise our reach of a targeted audience. Finally, we deployed audio ads on Spotify and Dax with personalised time-of-day ads to feel more relevant within the media space.